Naked Empire (24 page)

“But, like he says, if we don’t experience something with our own senses, then how can we know it’s real?”

Richard folded his arms. “I can’t get pregnant. So would you argue that for me women don’t exist.”

Jennsen backed away, looking a little sheepish. “I guess not.”

“Now,” Richard said, turning back to Owen, “you poisoned me—you admit that much.” He tapped his fist against his own chest. “It hurts in here; that’s real. You caused it.

“I want to know why, and I want to know why you brought the antidote. I’m not interested in what you think of the camp where the men who attacked us lay dead. Confine yourself to the matter at hand. You brought the antidote for the poison you gave me. That can’t be the end of it. What’s the rest?”

“Well,” Owen stammered, “I didn’t want you to die, that’s why I saved you.”

“Stop telling me your feelings about what you did and tell me instead what you did and why. Why poison me, and why then save me? I want the answer to that, and I want the truth.”

Owen glanced around at the grim faces watching him. He took a breath as if to gather his composure.

“I needed your help. I had to convince you to help me. I asked, before, for your help and you refused, even though my people have great need. I begged. I told you how important it was for them to have your help, but you still said no.”

“I have my own problems I must deal with,” Richard said. “I’m sorry the Order invaded your homeland—I know how terrible that is—but I told you, I’m trying to bring them down and our doing so will only help you and your people in your effort to rid yourselves of them. You aren’t the only one who has had their home invaded by those brutes. We have men of the Order murdering our loved ones as well.”

“You must help us, first,” Owen insisted. “You and those like you, the unenlightened ones, must free my people. We can’t do it ourselves—we are not savages. I heard what you all had to say about eating meat. Such talk made me ill. Our people are not like that—we can’t be, because we are enlightened. I saw how you murdered all those men back there. I need you to do that to the Order.”

“I thought that wasn’t real?”

Owen ignored the question. “You must give my people freedom.”

“I already told you, I can’t!”

“Now, you must.” He looked at Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and Friedrich. His gaze settled on Kahlan. “You must see to it that Lord Rahl does this—or he will die. I have poisoned him.”

Kahlan seized Owen’s shirt. “You brought him the antidote to the poison.”

Owen nodded. “That first night, when I told you all of my great need, I had just given him the poison.” His gaze returned to Richard. “You had just drunk it, within hours. Had you agreed to give my people the freedom they need, I would have given you the antidote then, and you would be free of the poison. It would have cured you.

“But you refused to come with me, to help those who cannot help themselves, as is your duty to those in need. You sent me away. So, I did not offer you the antidote. In the time since, the poison has worked its way through your body. Had you not been selfish, you would have been cured back then.

“Instead, the poison is now established in you, doing its work. Since it was so long since you drank the poison, the antidote I had with me was no longer enough to cure you, only to make you better for a while.”

“And what will cure me?” Richard asked.

“You will have to have more of the antidote to rid you of the rest of the poison.”

“And I don’t suppose you have any more.”

Owen shook his head. “You must give my people freedom. Only then, will you be able to get more of the antidote.”

Richard wanted to shake the answers out of the man. Instead, he took a breath, trying to stay calm so that he could understand the truth of what Owen had done and then think of the solution.

“Why only then?” he asked.

“Because,” Owen said, “the antidote is in the place taken by the Imperial Order. You must rid us of the invaders if you are to be able to get to the antidote. If you want to live, you must give us our freedom. If you don’t, you will die.”

Kahlan reached in to seize Owen by the throat. She wanted to strangle him, to choke him, to make him feel the desperate, panicked need of breath that Richard had endured, to make him suffer, to show him what it was like. Cara went for Owen as well, apparently having the same thought as Kahlan. Richard thrust his arm out, holding them both back.

Holding Owen’s shirt in his other fist, Richard shook the man. “And how long do I have until I get sick again? How long do I have to live before your poison kills me?”

Owen’s confused gaze flitted from one angry face to another. “But if you do as I ask, as is your duty, you will be fine. I promise. You saw that I brought you the antidote. I don’t wish to harm you. That is not my intent—I swear.”

Kahlan could only think of Richard in crushing pain, unable to breathe. It had been terrifying. She couldn’t think of anything else but him going through it again, only this time never to wake.

“How long?” Richard repeated.

“But if you only—”

“How long!”

Owen licked his lips. “Not a month. Close to it, but not a month, I believe.”

Kahlan tried to push Richard away. “Let me have him. I’ll find out—”

“No.” Cara pulled Kahlan back. “Mother Confessor,” she whispered, “let Lord Rahl do as he must. You don’t know what your touch would do to one such as he.”

“It might do nothing,” Kahlan insisted, “but it might still work, and then we can find out everything.”

Cara restrained her with an arm around her waist that Kahlan could not pry off. “And if only the Subtractive side works and it kills him?”

Kahlan stopped struggling as she frowned at Cara. “And since when have you taken up the study of magic?”

“Since it might harm Lord Rahl.” Cara pulled Kahlan back farther away from Richard. “I have a mind, too, you know. I can think things through. Are you using your head? Where is this city? Where is the antidote within the city? What will you do if using your power kills this man and you are the one who condemns Lord Rahl to death when you could have had the information we need had you not touched him.

“If you want, I will break his arms. I will make him bleed. I will make him scream in agony. But I will not kill him; I will keep him alive so that he can give us the information we need to rid Lord Rahl of this death sentence.

“Ask yourself, do you really want to do this because you believe it will gain you the answers we need, or because you want to lash out, to strike out at him? Lord Rahl’s life may hang on you being truthful with yourself.”

Kahlan panted from the effort of the struggle, but more from her rage. She wanted to lash out, to strike back, just as Cara said—to do whatever she could to save Richard and to punish his attacker.

“I’ve had it with this game,” Kahlan said. “I want to hear the story—the whole story.”

“So do I,” Richard said. He lifted the man by his shirt and slammed him down atop the crate. “All right, Owen, no more excuses for why you did this or that. Start at the beginning and tell us what happened, and what you and your people did about it.”

Owen sat trembling like a leaf. Jennsen urged Richard back.

“You’re frightening him,” she whispered to Richard. “Give him some room or he will never be able to get it out.”

Richard took a purging breath as he acknowledged Jennsen’s words with a hand on her shoulder. He walked off a few paces, standing with his hands clasped behind his back as he stared off in the direction of the sunrise, toward the mountains Kahlan had so often seen him studying. It had been on the other side of the range of the smaller, closer mountains, tight in the shadows of those massive peaks thrusting up through the iron gray clouds, where they had found the warning beacon and first encountered the black-tipped races.

The clouds that capped the sky all the way to the wall of those distant peaks hung heavy and dark. For the first time since Kahlan could remember, it looked like a storm might be upon them. The expectant smell of rain quickened the air.

“Where are you from?” Richard asked in a calm voice.

Owen cleared his throat as he straightened his shirt and light coat, as if rearranging his dignity. He remained seated atop the crate.

“I lived in a place of enlightenment, in a civilization of advanced culture…a great empire.”

“Where is this noble empire?” Richard asked, still staring off into the distance.

Owen stretched his neck up, looking east. He pointed at the far wall of towering peaks where Richard was looking.

“There. Do you see that notch in the high mountains? I lived past there, in the empire beyond those mountains.”

Kahlan remembered asking Richard if he thought they could make it over those mountains. Richard had been doubtful about it.

He looked back over his shoulder. “What’s the name of this empire?”

“Bandakar,” Owen said in a reverent murmur. He smoothed his blond hair to the side, as if to make himself a respectable representative of his homeland. “I was a citizen of Bandakar, of the Bandakaran Empire.”

Richard had turned and was staring at Owen in a most peculiar manner. “Bandakar. Do you know what that name, Bandakar, means?”

Owen nodded. “Yes.
Bandakar
is an ancient word from a time long forgotten. It means ‘the chosen’—as in, the chosen empire.”

Richard seemed to have lost a little of his color. When his eyes met Kahlan’s, she could see that he knew very well what the word meant, and Owen had it wrong.

Richard seemed to suddenly remember himself. He rubbed his brow in thought. “Do you—do any of your people—know the language that this ancient word,
bandakar
, is from?”

Owen gestured dismissively. “We don’t know of the language; it’s long forgotten. Only the meaning of this word has been passed down, because it is so important to our people to hold on to the heritage of its meaning: chosen empire. We are the chosen people.”

Richard’s demeanor had changed. His anger seemed to have faded away. He stepped closer to Owen and spoke softly.

“The Bandakaran Empire—why isn’t it known? Why does no one know of your people?”

Owen looked away, toward the east, seeing his distant homeland through wet eyes. “It is said that the ancient ones, the ones who gave us this name, wanted to protect us—because we are a special people. They took us to a place where no one could go, because of the mountains all around. Such mountains as only the Creator could impose to close off the land beyond, so that we are protected.”

“Except that one place”—Richard gestured east—“that notch in the mountain range, that pass.”

“Yes,” Owen admitted, still staring off toward his homeland. “That was how we entered the land beyond, our land, but others could enter there as well; it was the one place where we were vulnerable. You see, we are an enlightened people who have risen above violence, but the world is still full of savage races. So, those ancient people, who wanted our advanced culture to survive, to thrive without the brutality of the rest of the world…they sealed the pass.”

“And your people have been isolated for all this time—for thousands of years.”

“Yes. We have a perfect land, a place of an advanced culture that is undisturbed by the violence of the people out here.”

“How was the pass, the notch in the mountains, how was it sealed?”

Owen looked at Richard, somewhat startled by the question. He thought it over a moment. “Well…the pass was sealed. It was a place that no one could enter.”

“Because they would die if they entered this boundary.”

With an icy wave of understanding, Kahlan suddenly understood what composed the seal to this empire.

“Well, yes,” Owen stammered. “But it had to be that way to keep outsiders from invading our empire. We reject violence unconditionally. It’s unenlightened behavior. Violence only invites ever more violence, spiraling into a cycle of violence with no end.” He fidgeted with the worry of such a trap catching them up in the allure of its wicked spell. “We are an advanced race, above the violence of our ancestors. We have grown beyond. But without the boundary that seals that pass and until the rest of the world rejects violence as we have, our people could be the prey of unenlightened savages.”

“And now, that seal is broken.”

Owen stared at the ground, swallowing before he spoke. “Yes.”

“How long ago did the boundary fail?”

“We aren’t sure. It is a dangerous place. No one lives near it, so we can’t be positive, but we believe it was close to two years ago.”

Kahlan felt the dizzying burden of confirmation of her fears.

When Owen looked up, he was a picture of misery. “Our empire is now naked to unenlightened savages.”

“Sometime after the boundary came down, the Imperial Order came in through the pass.”

“Yes.”

“The land beyond those snowcapped mountains, the Empire of Bandakar, is where the black-tipped races are from, isn’t it?” Richard said.

Owen looked up, surprised that Richard knew this. “Yes. Those awful creatures, innocent though they are of malice, prey on the people of my homeland. We must stay indoors at night, when they hunt. Even so, people, especially children, are sometimes surprised and caught by those fearsome creatures—”

“Why don’t you kill them?” Cara asked, indignantly. “Fight them off? Shoot them with arrows? Dear spirits, why don’t you bash their heads in with a rock if you have to?”

Owen looked shocked by the very suggestion. “I told you, we are above violence. It would be even more wrong to commit violence on such innocent creatures. It is our duty to preserve them, since it is we who entered into their domain. We are the ones who bear the guilt because we entice them into such behavior which is only natural to them. We preserve virtue only by embracing every aspect of the world without the prejudice of our flawed human views.”

Richard gave Cara a stealthy gesture to be quiet. “Was everyone in the empire peaceful?” he asked, pulling Owen’s attention away from Cara.

“Yes.”

“Weren’t there occasionally those who…I don’t know, misbehaved? Children, for example. Where I come from, children can sometimes become rowdy. Children where you come from must sometimes become rowdy, too.”

Owen shrugged a bit with one shoulder. “Well, yes, I guess so. There were times when children misbehave and become unruly.”

“And what do you do with such children?”

Owen cleared his throat, plainly uncomfortable. “Well, they are…put out of their home for a time.”

“Put out of their home for a time,” Richard repeated. He lifted his arms in a questioning shrug. “The children I know will usually be happy to be put outside. They simply go play.”

Owen shook his head emphatically at the serious nature of the matter. “We are different. From the time we are born, we are together with others. We are all very close. We depend on one another. We cherish one another. We spend all our waking hours with others. We cook and wash and work together. We sleep in a sleeping house, together. Ours is an enlightened life of human contact, human closeness. There is no higher value than being together.”

“So,” Richard asked, feigning a puzzled look, “when one of you—a child—is put out, that is a cause of unhappiness?”

Owen swallowed as a tear ran down his cheek. “There could be nothing worse. To be put out, to be closed off from others, is the worst horror we can endure. To be forced out into the cold cruelty of the world is a nightmare.”

Just talking about such a punishment, thinking about it, was making Owen start to tremble.

“And that’s when, sometimes, the races get such children,” Richard said in a compassionate tone. “When they’re alone and vulnerable.”

With the back of his hand Owen wiped the tear from his cheek. “When a child must be put out to be punished, we take all possible precautions. We never put them out at night because that is when the races usually hunt. Children are put out for punishment only in the day. But when we are away from others, we are vulnerable to all the terrors and cruelties of the world. To be alone is a nightmare.

“We would do anything to avoid such punishment. Any child who misbehaves and is put out for a while will not likely misbehave again anytime soon. There is no greater joy than to finally be welcomed back in with our friends and family.”

“So, for your people, banishment is the greatest punishment.”

Owen stared into the distance. “Of course.”

“Where I come from, we all got along pretty well, too. We enjoyed each other’s company and had great fun when many people would gather. We valued our times together. When we’re away for a time, we inquire about all the people we know and haven’t seen in a while.”

Owen smiled expectantly. “Then you understand.”

Richard nodded, returning the smile. “But occasionally there will be someone who won’t behave, even when they’re an adult. We try everything we can, but, sometimes, someone does something wrong—something they know is wrong. They might lie or steal. Even worse, at times someone will deliberately hurt another person—beat someone when robbing them, or rape a woman, or even murder someone.”

Owen wouldn’t look up at Richard. He stared at the ground.

As he spoke, Richard paced slowly before the man. “When someone does something like that where you come from, Owen, what do your people do? How do an enlightened people handle such horrible crimes some of your people commit against others?”

“We attack the root cause of such behavior from the beginning,” Owen was quick to answer. “We share all we have to make sure that everyone has what they need so that they don’t have to steal. People steal because they feel the hurt of others acting superior. We show these people that we are no better than they and so they need not harbor such fears of others. We teach them to be enlightened and reject all such behavior.”

Richard shrugged nonchalantly. Kahlan would have thought that he would be ready to strangle the answers out of Owen, but, instead, he was behaving in a calm, understanding manner. She had seen him act this way before. He was the Seeker of Truth, rightfully named by the First Wizard himself. Richard was doing what Seekers did: find the truth. Sometimes he used his sword, sometimes words.